Protection Or Free Trade

854 PROTECTION OR FREE TRADE.
laws that Englishman and American would feel themselves as much citizens of a common country as do E~ew Yorker and California!!. Three thousand miles of water are no more of an impediment to this than are three thousand miles of land. And with relations so close, ties of blood and language would assert their power, and mutual interest, general convenience and fraternal feeling might soon lead to a pact, which, in the words of our own, would unite all the English. speaking peoples in a league "to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the' blessings of liberty."
Thus would free trade unite what a century ago protectionism severed, and in a federation of the nations of English speech—the world-tongue of the future— take the first step to a federation of mankind.
And upon our relations with all other nations our repudiation of protection would have a similar tendency. The sending of delegations to ask the trade of our sister republics of Spanish America avails nothing so long as we maintain a tariff which repels their trade. We have but to open our ports to draw their trade to us and avail ourselves of all their natural advantages. And more potent than anything else would be the moral influence of our action. The spectacle of a continental republic such as ours, really patting her faith in the principle of freedom, would revolutionize the civilized world.
For, as I have shown, that violation of natural rights-which imposes tariff duties is inseparably linked with that violation of natural rights which compels the masses to pay tribute for the privilege of living. The one.